Written by

Ryan Dunleavy
| @rydunleavy

During her three years as C. Vivian Stringer's associate head coach at Rutgers, Carlene Mitchell came to understand that the squeal of an incoming fax between 2 and 5 a.m. was as reliable as any alarm clock. The machine was a Christmas gift from her boss, who tested its efficiency daily in-season.

"She is so brilliant that her brain is always churning about coming up with a defensive scheme," said Mitchell, now the head coach at the University of California-Santa Barbara.

Stringer sits two wins shy of another validation of her success, but the Hall of Famer's future is as much in the spotlight as ...